ST-HUBERT, Que. - A teacher has been suspended after she gave her Grade 8 students a sexually explicit multiple-choice test that included questions about anal sex, lesbian encounters and penis sizes.

Several parents filed complaints after students at Andre-Laurendeau High School, on Montreal's south shore, were asked whether or not "blacks have bigger penises" or if they agreed that "all sexual positions are comfortable."

Students were also asked questions about sperm, anal sex and lesbian sex.

The school board has now opened an administrative investigation. School board director Andre Byette told QMI Agency that the exam was too explicit for young teens, adding that the teacher wrote the test herself as part of a religion and ethics course.

"I find the questionnaire dubious, even for college students," said Byette. "We do not approve of the content of certain questions. How does this help the sexual education of students? It's totally unacceptable."

The school withdrew the test following a parent's complaint and ordered the teacher to stop teaching sexual education to students.

When confronted by her bosses, the teacher said her test was aimed at fighting society's prejudicial views about sexuality. More parents then came forward, prompting the suspension.

Two sexologists contacted by QMI Agency were split about the value of the test.

Julie Pelletier, a Quebec psychotherapist and sex columnist, said the quiz was "inappropriate for the students of that age group."

She says the elimination of sex-ed courses in Quebec has led to teachers taking their own, sometimes ill-advised, initiatives.

But sexologist Jocelyne Robert had a different view. She says the teacher has been convicted prematurely and was only telling teens about sexual issues they're already seeing on the Internet and talking about in the schoolyard.

She says that sexual practices like sodomy and fellatio are not foreign to 13-year-olds.

"It's there, it's not anecdotal, it's very known to young people," she told QMI Agency.

"They see it wall to wall on the Internet. If we don't talk about it, we're sort of putting our heads in the sand."